UK Politics

[Neil]

4 hours ago, Nobody Interesting said:

 

The only thing I can think you are on about is the removal of people living in caravans from an area of the Downs. If that is the thing you are on about then they are not 'homeless' like you say and still live in their alternative housing just on a different site. The legal order used was obtained under the previous administration, run I think by Labour.

If you are referring to somewhere else then a link would be good.

yes, that, a year or two back the council tried to move some on who were parked up near me, and the people on the street got a petition together telling the council to let them stay, this is about Clifton money working to pressure the greens.

(they made a big play about not being the plaything of big money and the first thing they do is to favour big money; pressure that president_marv resisted.)

[Kurosagi]

44 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

you see that recent Greenpeace and Putin doc on bbc?

 

Nope, passed me by, looks interesting, thanks. Did you watch it?

[steviewevie]

12 minutes ago, Kurosagi said:

 

Nope, passed me by, looks interesting, thanks. Did you watch it?

yes. It's good.

[Nobody Interesting]

1 hour ago, Kurosagi said:

 

I'm confused by your argument, you do realise Greenpeace started as a small bunch of activists in a back office room? I thought their early money came from local benefits in Canada.

 

Greenpeace did start small yes but their big stuff that you referred to earlier, re risking lives, was pretty much all done once they had grown and had good funding.

[Nobody Interesting]

1 hour ago, steviewevie said:

The whole Greta Thunberg kids striking from school thing was probably more effective, but they don't bother with that anymore...

 

That's cos the government changed the rules to stop them

[Nobody Interesting]

1 hour ago, steviewevie said:

In the end governments have been set targets through the COP things. It isn't easy to transition away from fossil fuels over night, it takes investment, some disruption, some sacrifice and some will. The main target for us is net zero in 2050. The only thing that populations can do is vote, or protest, or revolt. They may want change to happen quicker, or they might not like the change. None of this is easy, and obviously telling people that if they don't do this the world will one day be f**ked isn't working because governments and parties keep telling their populations about the economic or security benefits of it, they hardly mention the climate. Maybe this will change as the climate becomes more extreme, but not sure we're quite there yet (although don't think we're far away). 

 

Given the past record of governments having targets to meet, legally binding ones included, I have no doubt at all that net zero will not be reached by the majority by 2050.

There will be excuse after excuse after excuse - most of which we have already heard - and in the end it will be down to science to save our arses.

[Nobody Interesting]

32 minutes ago, Neil said:

yes, that, a year or two back the council tried to move some on who were parked up near me, and the people on the street got a petition together telling the council to let them stay, this is about Clifton money working to pressure the greens.

(they made a big play about not being the plaything of big money and the first thing they do is to favour big money; pressure that president_marv resisted.)

 

So not homeless people then like you first posted. Travellers who have moved on and said they were going to move on anyway.

I do not argue it is a waste of money spending it to move people on but at no point has anyone been made homeless like you posted.

[Neil]

local tv news just said Cameron was campaigning in a pub today, i wonder if he remembered to collect all his kids this time.

now got anne widdecombe on tv saying that reform reject economic assessments, except their own claiming they'll make thing better.

[steviewevie]

 

[steviewevie]

9 minutes ago, Nobody Interesting said:

 

That's cos the government changed the rules to stop them

did they? what like you have to go to school rules?

[mattiloy]

2 hours ago, steviewevie said:

Not mad. Just don't think it works, but maybe I'm wrong. It certainly gets attention.

 

I’m unsure tbh, but they probs arent trying to convince people like you. If you’re 50+ and hate cyclists, you’re probs done. But the hearts and minds of the youth are maybe still there to be won and amplifying the message and sticking it to the man might not be a bad approach.

[Neil]

5 minutes ago, Nobody Interesting said:

 

So not homeless people then like you first posted. Travellers who have moved on and said they were going to move on anyway.

I do not argue it is a waste of money spending it to move people on but at no point has anyone been made homeless like you posted.

first noticeable thing theyve done in the city is to act on behalf on the most privileged housing-wise against the least privileged.

[Nobody Interesting]

1 minute ago, steviewevie said:

did they? what like you have to go to school rules?

 

They added in even stronger rules and threatened head teachers if they did not implement them.

[mattiloy]

1 hour ago, Kurosagi said:

 

Rude.

 

Perhaps very little, but what's your point? My comparator was Greenpeace, whose heroics I remain in awe of and who certainly did achieve sh*t and arguably wouldn't have done so if they'd have spent their time throwing sea water on land at utterly-unrelated-whaler-things.

 

 

Not mad, just critical. Do you see a difference? Is it not useful to reflect on what strategies might work and what smacks of being infiltrated to undermine your central message?

Is that the same green peace who sail a boat to the faroes to shout in a megaphone at the faroese kids for killing whales every year?

 

Not that I think that’s wrong, just that campaigning is not a pure science. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Worth a try.

Edited June 19 by mattiloy

[Nobody Interesting]

2 minutes ago, Neil said:

first noticeable thing theyve done in the city is to act on behalf on the most privileged housing-wise against the least privileged.

 

If you want to look at it that way fine but as I said the order used was obtained under the former council and I have done some reading and where they were was illegal hence being moved on.

Whether I believe the law is right or wrong matters not. Sadly they followed the law rather than working it out in a better way which could have been done with ease.

[Neil]

6 minutes ago, Nobody Interesting said:

 

If you want to look at it that way fine but as I said the order used was obtained under the former council and I have done some reading and where they were was illegal hence being moved on.

the ones in posh Clifton get moved on, the  much greater numbers by the council tips get left alone. why is that?

[steviewevie]

12 minutes ago, Nobody Interesting said:

 

They added in even stronger rules and threatened head teachers if they did not implement them.

I have no idea if that is true...from what I can gather they just dwindled out

[Ryan1984]

22 minutes ago, Nobody Interesting said:

 

Given the past record of governments having targets to meet, legally binding ones included, I have no doubt at all that net zero will not be reached by the majority by 2050.

There will be excuse after excuse after excuse - most of which we have already heard - and in the end it will be down to science to save our arses.

When Farage gets his way and is king of the country, he’ll make sure we get nowhere near Net Zero/tender as a woke myth that goes against ‘British values’- and be proud of it.

[steviewevie]

Just now, Ryan1984 said:

When Farage gets his way and is king of the country, he’ll make sure we get nowhere near Net Zero/tender as a woke myth that goes against ‘British values’- and be proud of it.

It's all exaggerated anyway 

[steviewevie]

 

[Kurosagi]

2 hours ago, Nobody Interesting said:

Greenpeace did start small yes but their big stuff that you referred to earlier, re risking lives, was pretty much all done once they had grown and had good funding.

 

Taking off on your maiden activist journey to stop a US nuclear test could be considered a rather brave action, no?

 

"In 1970, a Vancouver activist, Marie Bohlen, proposed a different idea. "Why doesn't somebody just sail a boat up there and park right next to the bomb? That's something everybody can understand." A year later, a small Vancouver group called Dont Make a Wave rented a beat-up fishing boat which they renamed The Greenpeace. Then the group went searching for volunteers to sail to Alaska to protest another scheduled nuclear test at Amchitka...Hunter, Moore and a dozen other activists sailed up the coast on the first voyage of The Greenpeace armed with environmental ideals and public relations savvy."

 

My point after the stonehenge action today was that Just Stop Oil have been almost exclusively focused on trying to be "PR savvy" whilst completely failing at actions that "everybody can understand".

[Kurosagi]

Interesting interview with the ex Canadian PM from the '93 conservative wipeout election:

 

Sam Freedman:
Did that result make you think differently about electoral systems, given that this was sort of a bizarre effect of first past the post that that created this situation? We could have a similar situation here with Labour winning 75% of the seats on 40% of the votes. Do you now think that PR is a better system or do you still support first past the post?

 

Kim Campbell:

I think there's a lot to be said for runoffs or ranked voting approaches. When you do have a fragmented vote under first past the post you can form a majority government with 38% of the vote as happened in 93. It creates an illusion. I think there's a lot to be said for the system in some European countries where you do have the runoff or ranked votes [like France]. It gives people the chance for their protest vote, which is a healthy thing. If there is a runoff it gives people the chance to rethink and reconsider. It's what Macron is hoping for, as has happened so many times in France, where in a run-off election people consolidate around one party to keep the far right from getting in. I don’t necessarily support pure proportional representation. You get parliaments like in Israel or Belgium where you have great difficulty creating coalitions. You see what happens in Israel where tiny little parties have a disproportionately large effect. I don't like that. Runoffs, or single transferrable vote systems, where the ultimate candidate has managed to get 50% or more of the vote in a particular district I think is fairer and less prone to extremism. Empowering the extremes is not healthy for democracy.

 

I suppose we'll see how well her view holds up after the French election...

[LJS]

1 hour ago, Kurosagi said:

 

Taking off on your maiden activist journey to stop a US nuclear test could be considered a rather brave action, no?

 

"In 1970, a Vancouver activist, Marie Bohlen, proposed a different idea. "Why doesn't somebody just sail a boat up there and park right next to the bomb? That's something everybody can understand." A year later, a small Vancouver group called Dont Make a Wave rented a beat-up fishing boat which they renamed The Greenpeace. Then the group went searching for volunteers to sail to Alaska to protest another scheduled nuclear test at Amchitka...Hunter, Moore and a dozen other activists sailed up the coast on the first voyage of The Greenpeace armed with environmental ideals and public relations savvy."

 

My point after the stonehenge action today was that Just Stop Oil have been almost exclusively focused on trying to be "PR savvy" whilst completely failing at actions that "everybody can understand".

I think there are two separate issues here:

 

1: are the "just stop oil" protests effective & likely to change anything? almost certainly not 

 

2: are they worth leading politicians taking time out to express their outrage at these totally victim-free actions? Absolutely not. 

[mattiloy]

15 minutes ago, LJS said:

 

 

2: are they worth leading politicians taking time out to express their outrage at these totally victim-free actions? Absolutely not. 

Do we have a word for the opposite of virtue signalling?

 

The tendency of certain politicians to leap on the opportunity to stick the boot in to ordinary folks doing something daft but basically harmless to curry favour with the worst people.

 

Look! I’m a hysterically angry and hateful middle aged english bloke too, vote for me!

Edited June 19 by mattiloy

[zahidf]

Fingers crossed